As the Tide Comes In

by Cindy Woodsmall

  “Hey, you guys about ready to begin work on the room again?”

  Gavin shook his head. Tell her no, he mouthed. He wasn’t sure what the next move should be, but they wouldn’t pack up or take apart one more thing. Why did he start taking apart the house before waiting the amount of time they’d promised Sapphira?

  His mom nodded at him. “No, sweetie. Something’s come up, and we’ve decided to put that off for today.”

  “Good. Because I met a cyclist named Lou King. He said he knows you all and that Gavin can vouch for him.”

  Gavin nodded and gave a thumbs-up. Lou was a good guy. Gavin could say so himself, but if Tara knew he was home, she’d have questions about how things went with the lawyer and where things stood with Roy Ashe, and Gavin wasn’t ready to answer any of that. Not yet. It was best to let her have a little time away while they adjusted to the news and he updated the lawyer.

  “Yeah,” his mom said, “on all accounts, Tara.”

  “Apparently he organizes bike rides on the island for visitors and residents alike. They’re riding to Epworth in a few minutes and somewhere else after that. I ran into them at the big parking lot in Pier Village, and he introduced himself and asked if I wanted to join them. I thought maybe I’d ride with them for a few miles if you were still on a break.”

  Sue Beth leaned toward the phone. “That sounds like fun, but before we let you go, I have a question. Since we’ve paused working on the painting room, I’m thinking about getting my hair done. Did I notice that you have a white streak of hair? And if so, is it natural or bleached?”

  “You saw that?” Tara laughed. “Almost no one notices it since the rest of my hair is blond. Yeah, it’s natural, so I have no suggestions for your stylist. But color is in, so go for it.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Sue Beth said.

  “Listen, Tara. It’s Julep again. You should go for the whole ride. It’s a good day for biking. Really hot, though, so drink lots of water.”

  Gavin looked at his mamas. Apparently they wanted to give Tara one fun day before her world was rocked—again. And give themselves a day to adjust to the new reality regarding the debt hanging over their heads.

  “Are you okay, Julep?” Tara asked. “You sound like something’s wrong.”

  “No, I’m good. We’re all good. Enjoy your ride.” She ended the call.

  If only he could offer them some encouragement, but he was fresh out. What were they going to do? He drew a steadying breath. His first step had to be calling the lawyer back.

  At least Tara’s—no, Siobhan’s—inheritance would eventually make a positive difference in her life. That thought was the only balm to the ache in his heart.

  32

  Tara tilted her head back, letting the evening air toss her sweaty hair as she coasted toward Julep’s driveway. What a refreshing outing. Grief still lined every thought, but she’d found moments of respite throughout the day. Brief and fleeting moments, but welcome—as though golden rays of hope were trying to break though. She slowed the bike and turned onto the short driveway. A fire was burning in the pit, and the whole gang was sitting in chairs in Julep’s backyard, doing absolutely nothing.

  She rang the bike bell, hopped off, and walked to the sitting area. “Hey.” She set the bike against a tree, noticing all the fixings for a meal near the blazing fire pit. “Gavin Burnside, you’re not on duty, eating, or working on the house. What’s with that?” She took a seat. “How’d things go today with the lawyer and Roy Ashe?”

  “Good. Roy wasn’t happy, but we’ll get our money.” Gavin was using his EMT voice again.

  She chose to ignore it.

  “Hungry?” Julep lifted a cover off a plate of hot dogs that looked as if they’d been cooked over the open fire.

  “No thanks. The bike group had a late lunch in Brunswick and then stopped for ice cream less than an hour ago.” She’d eaten both times while talking to people who knew nothing about her. She didn’t mention her brothers, and it was nice to be with people who didn’t feel sorry for her or awkward around her. “So what happened that all work on the painting room came to a halt?”

  “Yeah, we need to talk about that.” Gavin’s voice softened even more as he rapped his thumbs in quick succession against the arms of the chair. “We need to talk.” The rapping of his thumbs quickened as he repeated himself.

  Nervous behavior wasn’t typical for Gavin, was it?

  Concern hit her. “Is everyone okay? Hadley, Elliott…”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing like that, sugar.” Dell picked up a clear pitcher with icy water, poured some into a cup, and held it out. “And it’s not bad news as much as unexpected and a bit shocking.”

  “Shocking?” She took the drink. That was a weird word to use unless it was coupled with bad news. “I’m listening.”

  “Should we all stay?” Julep asked. “I’m not sure Tara needs all of us staring at her while she’s grasping the news.”

  “Oh, for land’s sake”—Sue Beth sat up straight—“it’s not bad news, not for her. Stop dawdling.”

  Tara used her thumbnail to pluck at a splinter of old wood on the arm of the Adirondack chair. “Then you should spit it out, Sue Beth.”

  The woman’s face drained of color, and she looked at her friends. Then she got out of her chair and crouched in front of Tara. “Honey, remember the dream you told us about?”

  “Of course. I told you this morning.” Just how bad did they think her memory was?

  Sue Beth put her hand over Tara’s. “It wasn’t a dream.”

  Tara’s heart froze for a moment. Then she thought about who was telling her this. She looked at Gavin. He was levelheaded. “What is she trying to say?”

  Gavin’s eyes met hers as he stood. “Sapphira spent a lifetime looking for her granddaughter. She put ads in newspapers. One of those ads attracted Sean and Darryl to St. Simons because your birth date and Sapphira’s granddaughter’s birth date are the same.”

  Grief slammed against her, stealing her breath. Her brothers had loved her so fully. How would she live without that powerful source? But the birth dates matching meant nothing. “That’s an interesting coincidence, but I dare say about ten thousand other babies were born on that same date in the US.”

  “Tara.” Gavin stepped closer. “I was the kid you gave the snow cone to. You rolled the window down because you were in a car, not a room, and you begged people for money to buy the snow cone because your mom had locked us in the car in summertime, and I was overheated.”

  “My mom?” Her heart lurched. “You guys knew my mom?”

  Sue Beth was kneeling now beside Tara, and she rubbed Tara’s arm. “Yeah, sweetie.”

  Tara stood and plunked the glass of water on a table. “That can’t be true. It’s just all too crazy.”

  “It’s true, Tara.” Gavin rubbed his forehead. “We can run a DNA test if you like. Sapphira had her DNA results on file in case that was needed to verify someone who arrived in response to the ad in the paper, but I don’t need any additional proof. Same birth date. Sapphira’s daughter’s name was Cassidy, same as your mom’s name. Siobhan’s hair had a white streak, a variance like a birthmark.” He offered a smile, but it didn’t make it to his eyes. “You have that very same streak. I know all I need to be assured you’re Sapphira’s granddaughter, the one for whom she put this home and property in escrow.”

  Her eyes filled with unwanted tears. “I…I had someone who loved me?” She faced the back of Sapphira’s home. “All those years in foster care…” She’d battled every moment to cope with the heartache and loneliness. She’d gone through an emotional war to learn to care about herself and trust herself when no one else in her family cared about her. And now…

  “I…I had someone?”

  “Your nana, Sapphira O’Keefe.” Julep stood.

  “My…nana?
Did she paint the picture I have, signed to Spunky Boo?”

  The girls’ reactions said it all. She was Spunky Boo.

  “Spunky Boo, Sunshine, and Masterpiece were her favorite nicknames for you,” Luella said.

  “Sapphira was a remarkable woman,” Julep said. “And she never stopped hoping and praying that you’d return home. You and Gavin were best buds, despite that you were two years older. But all of us knew and loved you, and we grieved when Cassidy disappeared with you. Sapphira never got past the loss. Never stopped praying that you would come back.”

  “And my dad? Did you know my dad?”

  The Glynn Girls looked at each other, their hesitancy clear.

  Julep brushed Tara’s hair back, pinning it behind her ear. “No, sweetie. Your mama never did say. She was nineteen, and we think it was a visitor to the island, probably here for a month or two. Someone who swept her off her feet, seduced her, and returned home. It broke her heart. She’d fallen in love, and we believe he was the first guy she’d been with. She’d lost her dad, fell into a summer romance, and then had you. About the time you were born, she began using drugs to cope with her emotions.”

  Tara took a step back, her heart pounding. None of this was what she’d imagined over the years. She’d pictured her mom as being abused while growing up and turning to drugs to cope with all that baggage. So Tara was grateful to have been raised in a different kind of home from the one with her mom—in nonviolent homes, even if they were foster care. But…

  None of what she’d believed was true?

  “No. No. No. No!” She fisted her hands. “I’m not her. You’re wrong.” She paced. “I can’t believe my mother grew up in a good home and just became a train wreck as an adult.” Anger churned, and she didn’t know what to do with herself. “She had the picture-perfect childhood, and then she destroyed mine? Was she crazy? Somebody tell me she was nuts and that’s why she did that!” Tara pulled air into her lungs. “I held it together to raise Sean and Darryl, carrying my abandonment like an unbearable load because the princess didn’t have it in her to be a decent human to her own daughter? Was she a narcissist?” She turned to the Glynn Girls, shaking all over. “Someone answer me!”

  Julep folded her arms. “We don’t have the answers you want. You aren’t anything like her. We could see that from the time you were a little bitty thing. She was frail and needy, afraid of her own shadow. She was also a daddy’s girl. She was seventeen when he died, and she was never the same after that. Looking back I can see now that her life slowly spiraled downward from that point.”

  How much more could her heart take? She stared at the home. It was like she was in a scene out of a dream.

  All the old questions churned inside her again. She thought she’d put them to rest. Was God testing to see how much she could take? Why else would she learn these things when there was nothing of real value to gain from them? She didn’t need a guardian, and Sapphira was gone, and she couldn’t even celebrate discovering her roots with Sean or Darryl. For all intents and purposes, this was useless information. It felt as if God were mocking her.

  She lifted her eyes heavenward. Why? She wanted to scream the question, but she refused to embarrass herself. “I’d like to be left alone now, and I’ll stay in Sapphira’s house tonight.” Maybe it would hold a few answers for her.

  “But”—Julep shook her head—“the only rooms with complete flooring are the painting room and its adjoining bathroom.”

  “Sapphira’s painting room is the perfect place to stay—alone, please.”

  The Glynn Girls looked to Gavin.

  Why were they looking at him? This was her home! “It’s not a request.” She walked toward the house.

  “Come back to your room anytime,” Julep said. “But in case you do choose to stay here for the night, I’ll bring blankets for a pallet and a pillow.”

  Tara made herself stop, turn, and respond. “Thanks, Julep, and thanks to all of you. I know this isn’t your fault. It isn’t anyone’s fault.” Except her mom’s. And God’s. “Get some rest.”

  The looks on their faces and Gavin’s face caused Tara to think for a moment, and their loss in all this dawned on her for the first time. But she had no strength or clarity to address it right now. Using her phone, Tara turned on the flashlight app. She went inside and walked across the subflooring to Sapphira’s painting room.

  At least the lighting fixture still worked in this room. She turned it on and started looking through watercolor paintings, sketches, and photographs. The work captured her mind and heart, and her anger faded a bit. The colors and images gave her a glimpse of Sapphira’s soul, and a smile tugged at Tara’s lips. Sapphira must have been whimsical and loving.

  Tara opened a drawer and discovered a book filled with sketches. The top ones appeared to be done with charcoal and colored pencils. They were light and airy, and there was a little blond-headed girl in each one. Some had the girl and a little boy, probably Gavin and her, at various places on the island. She turned each page, but suddenly all color disappeared, and the girl was barely visible, as if she were moving farther and farther away. The last one had a woman about the age the Glynn Girls were now on a bench outside this home. The boy was beside her, and both were looking down the road.

  The girl wasn’t in the picture.

  Tara crumbled to the floor. “God, she waited for me. She loved me. She prayed and planned for me to return. Why?” Tara pounded the floor with the flat of her hands. “Why?” She cried until she had no more tears, and then she turned off the light and lay on the floor, staring out the huge window.

  As moonlight made the world outside look like silver and silhouettes, a new thought came to her as gently as a snowflake falling.

  Look for love, not loss.

  The words struck deep. She looked again at all she’d learned today.

  Love had reached out to her when her mama abandoned her. What kind of childhood would she have had, going pillar to post, from one drug house to another, hardly attending school? Instead, she’d entered stable homes. In each of her three foster homes, love had taught her various skills and understandings that had guided her later on. Her foster parents had been vessels of love. They wanted nothing from her except to be allowed to help her be her best self. Every foster parent she’d had was a believer, and they all felt God’s love and wanted to share it. Some had strict house rules and no-nonsense boundaries, but they were vessels of love. Until now she’d felt like a visitor in those homes, but love had welcomed her.

  How had she not seen that before now?

  Her friendship with Hadley and Elliott had begun inside their last foster home, and Tara’s rapid bonding with them was stronger than anything her mother had been capable of. Had God been directing her steps all along, taking her toward love because her mother was more in love with drugs than life or God or even her own flesh and blood?

  She drew a deep breath. Show me more, God, please.

  Images of Sean and Darryl came to her, and her heart ached. She wouldn’t have wanted to give up that time with them for anything, including growing up with Sapphira. If Sapphira had found her, Tara most likely wouldn’t have been in North Carolina during that tiny window of time when the boys’ grandmother knew where to find her. The boys would’ve been raised with strangers. From what she’d seen growing up, it was harder for boys to stay in the same home year in and year out. Their anger, impulsivity, and raging hormones too often got the best of them, and with each foster-care move, they risked going to rougher homes, where love was hard to find and frustration was easy.

  What had Gavin said? “Every crumb of love matters, and I’d dare say you gave a feast.”

  Love surrounded her now, and she basked in it. Raising her brothers had been a long, beautiful lesson in letting go of her anger toward her mom. Every time she had shared some tiny smidgen of truth with them, it grew in
side her, and she understood it in ways that freed her. She needed that time with Sean and Darryl. She needed to fight for their right to enjoy their childhood, and in some ways it gave her a chance to relive her own while understanding more fully the stress of adulthood and parenthood. It’d given her new respect for her foster parents and new compassion for her mom.

  Sapphira hadn’t found her, but love had in many forms and through many people. Because of that, Tara had been able to give love just as she’d received it—not perfect or infallible as it worked its way across this fallen planet to reach its intended person, but sustaining, like an oasis in the desert.

  The longer she basked in this God moment, the more she saw His great effort to bring vessels of love into her life.

  “God,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I accused you of using me like a science experiment.”

  Anger and hurt seemed to flush from her heart, and she felt holy arms of love wrap around her. For the first time since losing Sean and Darryl, she felt like a vessel for love.

  There was a tap on the door. She got off the floor and opened the door. No one was there, only a stack of blankets, a pillow, several bottles of water, and a plate covered in foil with a beautiful ribbon on top.

  Even here. This weird little family was also a vessel of love.

  33

  “Gavin.”

  A whispery voice tugged on him to wake, but he couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Come on, sleepyhead.” Someone gently shook his shoulder.

  He moaned, his neck and back too stiff to move. He pried his eyes open. Where was he? He blinked and tried to lift his head. Oh yeah, he was sitting outside Sapphira’s painting room door, leaning against the wall. He stretched his neck and peered up to see Tara hovering over him. “Hey.”

  She smiled. “You’re one of the good guys. Now get off your butt, and let’s have some coffee. We have a lot to talk about.”

  Concern for her eased, and peace pushed aside his worst fears. Evidently he still hadn’t grasped the power of her inner strength and resilience.